Drag Workshop at Kent Guide and Scout Jamboree

[feministscout]

I am a scout leader and I am a feminist (a reasonably grumpy vocal menopausal one so that might be while I feel like this). Kent Scout Jamboree clearly ran a fantastic event for 7000 young people last week but I was really shocked to see that they had booked the "Kent Drag Queens" and were running Drag Workshops and Drag Bingo (this is 14-17 year olds). I'll be honest I don't like drag, I find it extremely degrading to women, but each to their own when you are an adult. What I was concerned about what the pictures that were posted on Facebook of the event showing young male scouts in drag in sexualised poses. I wont post them here as they are minors. Scouting is meant to be inclusive. This was a multi cultural event with 50% of those attending being young women. I don't think drag is empowering young women. I think it reduces the female form to an object of mimicry. Looking at these young lads dressed up it clearly fuelled sexualisation and distortion of gender roles. they were clutching their bras and chests etc. I also think it encourages misogynistic behaviour, reinforcing negative and reductive views of women and their bodies. I wrote as soon as I saw these images to the organisers of the Jamboree expressing my views and got what is clearly a stock response that they had lined up saying it was basically an inclusive event similar to pantomime, exposing people to a diverse population and if members didn't like it they could go and do something else. Utterly missing the point this isn't just an LGBT issue but a feminist one too. Am I being unreasonable and a fun sponge here or is this something that should be questioned going forward?

What exactly is ‘Drag’ inclusive of.

It's inclusive of creepy men getting their kicks out of other people watching them parody women by wearing 'sexy' women's clothes, unfortunately. They somehow manage to look disturbing and ridiculous at the same time. A bit like clowns can, I suppose.

no drag is offensive is woman face in the literally sense. Black and White minstrels is a good comparison.

It's a sexualized form of entertainment, associated with nightclubs and drug culture. Big fat no.

I agree. Training children to see this as normal is a form of grooming, in plain sight. And what’s in it for the girls, seeing themselves mocked and parodied? It’s the opposite of inclusive.

I’m amazed that organisations like Scouts and Girlguiding allow this.

I'll be honest, since men started going hell for leather at women's only spaces, I can't even stomach panto dames any more.

The context has changed entirely within the last 10 years.

I have a number of friends who are drag acts … a couple are very famous ones. None of them hate women, they are all very much men (and are not interested in “gaining access to women’s spaces”), they are all gay, in no way predatory, and drag for work not for sexual kicks.

That’s fine. That’s their business.

Why should they be part of portraying Scout’s and Brownie’s ‘inclusivity’ though?

Please no body tell me about Widow Twanky, by the way.

I’d rather my sex class wasn’t mimicked in anyway by men at all ever. Thanks

But why do they feel the need to dress as their perception of what a woman is, in order to do their act?

If they're skilled at singing, dancing, comedy, political satire, conjuring, making balloon animals, plate-spinning or whatever... why can't they do that without also appropriating the stereotypical appearance of the opposite sex?

Are you really telling us that they just appear on stage dressed 'as a woman' and then get on with their neutral act - without making any references or jokes about women or addressing their parodying of one?

Supposing I were a stand-up comedian or singer and I walked on to the stage to do my whole set dressed as a deep-sea diver, bee-keeper or fridge-freezer - and I made no mention whatsoever of that fact, or gave any reason for why I was dressed in that bizarre, highly unusual way... would that not seem extremely weird to you?

The Black & White Minstrels were talented dancers, so all should have been fine if they had just performed their dancing skills and entertained audiences in a normal, appropriate way - without half of them blacking up and basing their name and much of their act on the fact that they were culturally appropriating their gross stereotypical impression of black people.

Personally I can’t stand drag but the issue here is really about whether this was an appropriate workshop for children. It would be a totally different discussion if we were debating whether it is suitable for hen nights or whatever.

I loathe drag and have tried to get my head around how it ever came about. I believe it was originally rooted in gay culture, where men played with notions of gender stereotypes as part of being gay at a time when if you weren’t alpha male and straight you were rejected by society. I can see the trajectory of this. I can see this is to do with gay identity and a response to homophobia and is not rooted in misogyny.

But this is a far cry from encouraging boys in today’s society to dress up as women in a grotesque way and assume sexual poses. I think drag detached from its origins reduces it to misogyny.

I saw men that I know are straight married heterosexuals dressed as woman with balloons up their shirts in a recent float parade. I found their enjoyment of hamming it up as a big breasted woman utterly repulsive and grotesque. It sickens me actually. I can’t look at those men in the same way anymore because they’ve revealed something about themselves to me that I find disturbing. Our high school football team all did this. The idea my son could possibly one day be encouraged to think mocking women is OK just revolts me. Respect for women is really sliding.